God raised his eyebrows slightly.
"And I was slain in battle. And so I stand before you, meet for your nethermost Hell! Out of your greatness daring no lies, daring no pleas, but telling the truth of my iniquities before all mankind."
He ceased. His face I saw distinctly, and it seemed to me white and terrible and proud and strangely noble. I thought of Milton's Satan.
"Most of that is from the Obelisk," said the Recording Angel, finger on page.
"It is," said the Tyrannous Man, with a faint touch of surprise.
Then suddenly God bent forward and took this man in his hand, and held him up on his palm as if to see him better. He was just a little dark stroke in the middle of God's palm.
"Did he do all this?" said the Lord God.
The Recording Angel flattened his book with his hand.
"In a way," said the Recording Angel, carelessly. Now when I looked again at the little man his face had changed in a very curious manner. He was looking at the Recording Angel with a strange apprehension in his eyes, and one hand fluttered to his mouth. Just the movement of a muscle or so, and all that dignity of defiance was gone.
"Read," said the Lord God.